Heal the Ocean’s 6th Annual Benefit at the Coral Casino on Saturday night was a sold-out success, with over 440 people listening to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and participating in our Auction and Raffle, and dancing to the great music of the FOG until 11 p.m.! We’ll be posting on these pages very soon more particulars of the evening, including great photos!
But in the meantime—back to work! This evening (Tuesday, October 12, 2010), Heal the Ocean will be travelling to Los Olivos to participate in a town hall meeting of residents considering whether or not to proceed with the Los Olivos Wastewater Management Plan, which proposes several options for the business area of town to get off of septic systems and either onto sewer, or to build a collection system that will recycle wastewater (among other options). The LOWWMP has a price tag of approximately $250,000, paid for out of the remaining funds brought into Santa Barbara County in 2000 by former assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson for the purpose of working on septic system problems in the county. The current draft of the plan can be viewed via the following links.
Los Olivos Wastewater Management Plan
Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board Policy Letters
Also, in our role on the steering committee of the Santa Barbara County Integrated Regional Water Management Plan (IRWMP), Heal the Ocean has been successful in lobbying for a Recycled Wastewater element in an Application for Proposition 84 Planning Grant Round 1 for Santa Barbara IRWM plan for 2012. We hope you will take a moment to read Appendix 2: Scope of Work: Santa Barbara County/South Coast Subregion, Recycled Water Development Plan! And please note that THREE of Heal the Ocean’s studies are on the suggested list for literature review – including our recently-released California Ocean Wastewater Discharge Report & Inventory, Heal the Ocean has been recognized by the county’s IRWMP consultants have having “foresight and vision” to assemble these reports – because as we move into the future, the recycling of wastewater will become a critical issue to the State as it combats the problem of increasing drought.
This Planning Grant application has been submitted to the State Department of Water, and we will hear by January 2011 on the granting of funds for this study. We are keeping our fingers crossed! And we are grateful to the sanitary districts and water districts on the Santa Barbara south coast, for their cooperation in helping us get the wastewater recycling element into the plan!
We will keep you posted!
Thank you so much for your support.
